About Us
About The Change Gym
The Change Gym is an Australian business based on the Gold Coast, Queensland. We began operating in 2010 and have served clients around Australia and overseas. We help companies build their psychological and environmental readiness for change.
By building change readiness, leaders promote the well-being, cultural agility, competitiveness, and progress of their organisations.
Our approach is scientific, scalable, and simple to use. It has much to offer mid to large size organisations.
About Our Story
Innovation is a strange beast. Most organisations prize it, at least in theory. However, innovation is also risky, and most businesses hate risk.
Most innovations spring from gaps waiting to be filled. This was our experience.
In the early 2000s, Steve Barlow, current CEO of The Change Gym, was contracted to deliver anger management training to maximum-security prisoners. The NSW government needed such training and paid good money for it.
But there is often a gap between need and readiness.
Just because prisoners need anger management training doesn’t mean they are ready to apply the information they learn. A gap often exists between people’s needs and what they are ready to do.
People often equate readiness with motivation and preparation, but change readiness is more complex than that.
The gap between need and readiness appears in many organisations around the world. While important things need to be done, there is less readiness to make them happen.
So, what do you do? You can cajole people and force them to engage, but they do so half-heartedly. Ultimately, this usually creates ill will and potentially damages the culture. A much safer approach is to build people’s readiness to engage, succeed, and change.
Steve Barlow eventually earned a PhD in change readiness, for which he won the 2010 Outstanding Thesis Award. He then taught postgrads undertaking leadership studies at the University of Tasmania how to build readiness to engage, succeed, and change.
Over the years, we have developed and refined these ideas and created courses to help leaders and their teams close the gap between need and readiness.
If you wish your people were more ready to engage and persist when changes get hard, we have a system for building their readiness, and it’s easy to do.
About Our People
At the helm of The Change Gym is Dr Steve Barlow. Steve has held senior leadership roles in schools, vocational education institutes, prisons, universities, businesses, and community settings. For a few years, he ran a few cruise boat businesses in Sydney, including a 250-seat cruising restaurant.
Dieter Weinand is a business performance facilitator and executive coach with over 30 years experience. He specialises in leadership and organisational development. Dieter helps co-facilitate some of our programs.
Deb Maes is a coach to ‘change-makers’; leaders who lead with integrity and seek to bring out the full potential of their teams. Deb helps co-facilitate some of our programs.
Testimonials
Steve’s work focuses on helping individuals and teams build what he calls change fitness—the mental and emotional resilience to adapt, thrive, and even lead during times of change. Change readiness is more than just responding to change; it’s about proactively preparing for it. Think of it as developing the mindset and skills to stay calm, confident, and effective when things shift around you. Change fitness takes that further by strengthening your adaptability, focus, and problem-solving abilities under pressure. Dr. Barlow’s programs combine practical strategies with psychological insights. Participants learn to stay resourceful and positive even in challenging situations, navigate uncertainty with clarity and purpose, and build stronger, more collaborative relationships during times of change. His programs aim to equip individuals with the tools to handle complexity, lead effectively, and turn change into an opportunity for growth.
What my team and I appreciated most was the fresh approach to change that Steve takes. The Change Gym transcends details. It supports the attitudes and commitment necessary for success in the process of change – small or large.
I hope that many more people will hear your message and realise its worth. I know it's changed my life - and is echoing through much of what I do, and for that I'm ever grateful to you.
Dr Barlow has done an a amazing job developing a deep and potent coaching and educational system. His academic research surrounding Change Fitness is excellent and its practical applications work in literally any context that involves change. It is a solid foundation for anyone undergoing change. I have personally had my life transformed through the Personal Change Fitness Program. Dr Barlow is able to see both the scope of a situation and the details necessary to create successful change in that moment. He is an integrative thinker, a synthesiser and a professional with the rare combination of being a successful scientist, communicator, and practitioner. I recommend his work for coaches and business managers looking to institute change processes based on solid research evidence with truly practical, lasting results.
It has been a privilege being a part of Dr. Steve's program- organisational change readiness. This program is a game changer for me as an Agile Coach. It has highlighted the importance for me to fully understand the deep organisational change language as well as the difference between managing change and change management. This program authentically highlights all these on a whole new level. My overall awareness has grown on how to approach change processes and been subsequently enhanced. I have received incredible value throughout and would recommend it to anybody leading people in, with or through change. I am excited to continue with the next phase of personal development and grow my capabilities with the personal change fitness program.
I'd been working as a leadership coach for 8 years already when I discovered The Change Gym and the deeply important work Dr. Steve has done in the area of developing a program to assist coaching clients with building psychological capacity for change. Who knows what changes will take place in the next 40 years? We can anticipate that that world will look very different, but the good news is that we can be ready for anything, if we develop our change fitness. I'm very excited about his products that serve my own coaching over the next decades.
Steve's approach to change management readiness is definitely an important aspect for all aspects of business - change is always happening so, it is best to be ready for it. I would recommend Steve without hesitation to any and all change management professionals
Steve's Change fitness program has helped me enormously to understand the drivers of change and consequently build activities that will help people stick to the program (and create a real impact in their lives). Working with Dr. Steve has been a truly pleasant and inspiring experience.
Dr Steve Barlow has extensive expertise in the psychology of change fitness. Steve teaches how to identify and measure the psychological capacity for change - very helpful these days.